2015 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 14

For today’s prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired by art, usually, though not always, images. I’m providing a few below:

Michelangelo

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Frida Kahlo

Edward Hopper

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Re-create Your Poetry!

Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process! In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.

Here’s my attempt at an Ekphrastic poem:

Walt wears the mask of a reasonable soul; Barbara wears one
that cares for the whole; Eddie wears a mask wild and free;
but Marcus wears a mask that is not quite as easy to read.

The adults wear their masks of “don’t bother us now, but behave
and be brave as we cower and scowl.” Jesse wears a mask
that’s invisible now, but his shadow engulfs every heart in town.

The Carter House, itself, is a mask dark and deep that conceals
two muffled voices and a mystery. In a downtown jail cell,
there sits alone a man with a mask without his cell phone.

And the teachers wear masks that plead, “Please look away
from the drama in town both tomorrow and today.” There’s one
mask left to lift, one mask still yet untouched, a mask of the dawn,

a mask of the dusk. There’s one mask left to pull in this whole
tossed around world, the mask that belongs to Jesse’s girl.

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of the poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He edits Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market, in addition to writing a free weekly WritersMarket.com newsletter and a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine.

This is his eighth year of hosting and participating in the November PAD (Poem-A-Day) Chapbook Challenge. He can’t wait to see what everyone creates this month–not only on a day-by-day basis, but when the chapbooks start arriving in December and January. Fun, fun, fun.

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100 thoughts on “2015 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 14”

Only yesterday
she held tightly to the past,
well grounded, strong roots,
comfortable in her surroundings –
familiar faces, accustomed places –
knowing her place in the world;
then, light changed, winds shifted,
her reality began to mutate,
transfigure into something foreign,
at times, totally unrecognizable.
Suddenly she’s in a free fall,
her past dubious,
the future uncertain.
Nothing is the same,
nothing is as she remembers it
and she can only wonder where,
and who, she’ll be
when this crazy spinning stops.

Besides being artistically
brilliant were you also
hugely insane?
I can’t help wondering this
because of some of the things
you managed to pull off …
Like your self-portrait
when you drew yourself
holding a reflecting globe
holding a reflecting globe
– talk about something
schizoid, or split.

And then this one,
with your one hand
drawing the other
drawing the other
drawing the other
and so on – over and over
And not clumsily in the least.

There’s not a miscue or a wrong
line anywhere; it’s very convincing
as if you’re doing it in real time
Were you? I wish you were
still around to ask …

Wheat-colored grass fields
separate her from the chaff
that has been home since she was
a little stranger,
through kith and kin.
She is at large from her world
that has become small:
fourteen rooms,
four walls,
and Maine land as far as she can crawl—
not as a child,
but as a woman whose feet trail behind her
like tin cans on a honeymoon car,
her legs like the strings that connect them,
her spirit soaring above the plain.

I observed you there, at the museum, watching me from the corner.
Your eyes seemed to know me,
to beckon me,
and drawn by their intensity I came to you.
Stranding before you I glanced to the left and to the right, and then,
finally,
I looked at you.
Your brown eyes, soulful, honest, knowing.
I could not look away, but I wanted to.
I knew I wasn’t worthy, I knew you were just a painting, but
Rembrandt must have captured some part of your soul
because there you were!
You seemed to know everything,
all at once,
about me.
I stood before you, unable to look away, seeing only your beautiful face,
feeling your grace, your forgiveness.
You stared deep into me, and
for one moment I felt total.
My eyes filled with tears as you gazed my way,
knowing that I would hold this moment forever.

I am every card every dog holds
Assisting the poker faces
Snarls and growls at cheaters
Heady, focused, opaque
I play the clubs to the diamonds
The 2’s to the aces
My life is doctored shuffling
Hidden trump cards in the warmth of seats
Barking over each other
Peripheral vision catches few snakes
After the chips are given to the victor as is due
I am put to rest
Waiting to be thrown back into my cycle